


Cigarettes, Chemicals and Escapading.

by dontaskpcandy



Series: Housekeeper Swap [1]
Category: Father Ted, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Housekeeper, Oblivious, Stealth Crossover, Umbrellas, Whump, bulletproof cardigan alert, gratuitous crockery death, hurt without comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 08:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontaskpcandy/pseuds/dontaskpcandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Be careful when you wish for a housekeeper, your wish might be granted.</p><p>Mrs Doyle is swapped to work at 221B Baker Street.  Mrs Hudson therefore goes to Craggy Island Parochial House.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cigarettes, Chemicals and Escapading.

 

_Housekeeper swap documentary my behind!_

_As soon as I saw the inside of the house I wanted to go straight back to London, I'm telling you.  Right straight back with no stopping.  I found where the smell was coming from, some sort of pile of blackened rags in the corner in what had been a decent chair in the front sitting room, all smoke stained like it had been set on fire, and my heart went straight out to that Mrs Doyle and no mistake. I had a nice pair of Marigolds in my handbag, you know, for the journey on the ferry over in case because some people get messy when they travel, but this....  Well I grabbed the nearest couple of empty bottles and started to look for the recycling bins when a horrible gurgling grinding noise came out of the rag pile._

_I thought it was a trapped cat, and thought it had crawled in there after the rag fire had been put out looking for some shelter indoors from the wind and rain. "puss puss, here puss" and saw its eyes little become all alert and feral, and a horrible suspicion came over me and I ran right out of the room and grabbed my suitcase and waited on the porch as best out of the sideways drizzle I could manage hoping the two men of the house I had agreed to look after would come to their senses and remember the time they were supposed to be home to welcome me in.  Not the best start to the two week swap I was a bit angry.  I resolved to get that recording diary camera going as soon as I could. Vigorously._ _After five minutes of working out not only was the rain going sideways but corkscrewing into the porch whichever side I stood on I gritted my teeth and made my way back to the kitchen door even though there was only a path of pure mud, which wasn't locked at all, just like the front door had been and went in._

_Two ticks later there was a fire on, my coat off and a cosy tea bubbling in the kettle and the good china out just for me.   It was obvious that the woman of that house had a lot more going for her in the practical living stakes then the men.  Once again, ha!_

     

It seems to be a bit strange living really actually in the same house, but there was only a small moment until I saw there was None Of That going on between upstairs and downstairs, the three locks on the door to The Lady's kitchen living room being a clue and the way that the other doors upstairs in the quarters were open all the time swinging off slightly broken hinges even with the door right to  the street being let open at all days and all times of night. 

    Seeing the kitchen being practical and almost Blindingly Modern was such a feeling like a little reward, me in A Posh  London House with the modern conveniences on tap and outside the door.  Pavements pavements pavements as far as you could see, and it seemed that none of the windows had cardboard in at all.  I put my apron on, and my best apron over the top (well, we always must try to look our best) and put an electric kettle of water on and got both loaves out ready for sandwiches.  

     It was seven past breakfast time and who knows what and when The Gentlemen would come in from doing their Modern London Things and need a good solid plate of sandwiches each, so I set to and prepared a couple of sets, moving the shelf in the fridge to make a bigger space.  Then I took the third platter with me and found my customary waiting place in the hall at the bottom of the stairs waiting for The Gentlemen to arrive. I know how to do things properly I'll have you know.

  


_A couple of stout boxes filled with the glass bottles by the back door later, and there was a feeling of order starting to come through the chaos.  I was very impressed that under every single bottle there was a clean floor, but got a bit concerned that there was a secondary pile still to be dealt with through in the front room.  Pushing the connecting door open cautiously I went in from the side to grab an armful of bottles and run back. The grinding and guzzling noise was back in the dirty chair, and I wondered if it was some sort of a farm animal kept as a pet.  Rural ways, rural pastimes I suppose. I was glad I had good shoes on, defence of vulnerable feet in mind. There was a stout broom by the connecting door, I now knew why it was kept out and not in with the cleaning things.  Back in the kitchen I got a bucket of cold water ready as well._

 

    The street door was almost broken open on its hinges and two shouting squabbling grown men came in rumbling and tussling and fighting in their way that men have, and as the lighter shorter one drew back his fist to punch the other I stepped up and said "Would you take a spot of tea now, it's just in the pot" and smiled my best and brightest.  Holding his fist in the other's lapels they both stood stock still and stared at me.  The pale boy of the two then cleared his throat and stood up on his feet, brushing his coat into shape. 

    The first one then smiled at me charmingly, and lifted the platter into the other's hands, and said "Now we mustn't have ladies carrying heavy weights, must we Sherlock" and nudged the tall boy upstairs shushing him up a bit. I didn't know if that meant tea was to be Up or Down, but then given the state of the locks  thought it wise to Keep A Bit Of Distance and made myself only a cup and found the sitting room in what was obviously to be My Flat for the exchange figuring Lunch would be the next Job Of The Day.

_I put a healthy amount of bleach into one of the buckets of water by the door.  Never can be too careful._

   

Four loaves were in the delivery cupboard by the back door.  The nice wee brown man in the snack shop leading onto the street seemed to sympathise, and the pre-cut sleeve of cheese was exactly what I required.  Putting the sandwiches into half-white and half-brown piles, I made a third pile of mixed just for the sake of it. The door at the street was opened, and a smooth sparkly man with dark hair and unkind eyes made of obsidian stepped into the hall, his umbrella in hand even though the sun was starting to make the pavements look like autumn gold outside. His head reared back and his eyes narrowed as he tried to place me, not even flickering to the sandwich platter I was holding out to him.

    "The two fathers are in upstairs," I said to him at which he pursed his lips and narrowed his gaze again at me.  Of course, I'd forgotten the most important thing of all. I curtseyed sideways and smiled "Your Eminence", and only a few little morsels fell off onto the floor. As he slowly placed his foot on the bottom step, I ran over ahead of him up the stairs.  Bundling the platter onto a table at the top I flourished open the door into the Front Parlour Sitting Room and clearly spoke up.

  
    "The Archdeacon of Westminstershire is here to see you, Fathers."  Looking behind me I saw that he had somehow ran into the door and his nose was all streaming red over his shirtcollar and suit and his umbrella lay on the floor.    
    "Now Your Reverence, I'll just take this briefcase for you so you can have a cup of tea." I pulled at the handle and his nerveless fingers just let it go.  Crossing my hands over it to my chest I breathed in its Holy Business texture and expense and nipped down with it to add another cup and saucer to the tray.    
    Then I realised I was being too foolish for words."You're being too foolish for words, Mrs Doyle, aww what are you like!" I said to myself and found the floral and gold tea set and the silver tray.  No workmen's mugs this afternoon Oh No.  There was a Bishop's Apron upstairs.  I put the briefcase in the oven and got to work with the kettle and lipstick.

_I settled into the chair and grasped the rake handle securely, just in case._

   Having poured out the tea I filled the pot again and put the lot onto the tray.  As I got to the bend in the stairs Father John came through from his room with cloths and bandages, and the Archdeacon was saying something  ecclesiastical to the tall thin Father sitting on the paper heap and candles by the sofa. 

     "Would you take a cup of tea, Fathers?"  Father John beamed at me, the dear boy and thanked me as he took the saucer nearest him, not spilling a drop.  The wee Thin Father was in fact unconscious, but still able to have a cuppa, so I left one next to him on the sofa.  That prompted the Archbishop to say something, at which Father John looked up, and said to me about leaving the pot or something, but that has never stopped me.                                "Will you have a tea now, Your Reverence?" I said, and put a convenient cuppa right in front of His Unctuousness.  The man  flolloped backwards and spilled everything over his suit and the papers and the mirror, catching his arm on fire.  Those wacky Londoners!

_I put a sandwich together for myself, and saw how dark the darkness outside the window was.  Not a streetlight, car light or even moonlight put any shape onto the poorly kept grass field out the back.  I tried to put the bolt on the outside door and noted it didn't line up at all well.  Feeling a prickle at the back of my neck I turned and saw the door to the front room had three bolts and two locks on it, all recent.  I took the hint._

  


Fortunately I found a hacksaw so I could put the umbrella next to the briefcase, tidier that way I thought _._

  
_  
    Finding a broken hockey stick and a plant sprayer, I settled in for the night in the little bedroom.  All of the doors were cupboards, not leading to the rest of the main house with stairs or anything, and it wasn't for the first time that I started to wonder what on earth people did all day here to need to hole up regularly under siege.  And how come I won that competition when I hadn't posted the entry was the other thing that had bothered me.  _

_There was a total of eight shelves of literature and poetry in that little cosy flowered bedroom, obvious that it was only used the odd time for the bad weather fouling up the journey home. And a little faded photo in a plain metal frame of a couple on their wedding day, both in plain but special love together.  A widow, then. Housekeeping often gets the older singles of that background.  I dusted the frame with a finger, and silently replaced it, then settled down with Yeats for the night._

 

  Some sort of a ceildh had broken out upstairs, without much of a musical feel to it, just a violin and a lot of stamping about.  Classical ballet has always been popular with the Young People in London, and that was my time to shine and break out the refreshments.  I busied myself and got the little snacks all set out pretty then stacked them on the tray and swayed through the door and turned up the stairs, swerving around the purple smoke billowing down to the ground level behind me..  A grey haired man passed me on the stairs coming down, and excused himself with the manners of a gentleman.  

    He turned and looked at me quite sharply though, at the front door, and then stopped frowning and smiled at me like an angel had warmed his porridge that morning. He slipped out the door to the street soundlessly, passing  a glance at me over his shoulder. I  blushed, patted my hair into curls again and went on my way up to swing the door open into the upstairs kitchen, having to force it a little bit.

_There was a car accident out at the front  of the house. A shotgun was fired, and some football fans started to run around on the field.  A coach driver was swearing in Lithuanian. I checked the bedroom door was bolted, and continued to read._

 

  I moved about some things on the kitchen table and put the tray down, and put the snacks out in those flat little glass dishes that were everywhere in the flat.  Mr Father Tall And Moody had told me off once for not washing up, or was it for washing up sure and so I just did what I needed to put the food nicely and put more hot water in the pot and started to pour and sort out the cups and saucers and milk, waving the smoke away with my hand as I did so.  I thought they needed an ashtray, so I cleared out a few more dishes into the bin and took the empty ones through.  

    Father John smiled at me and took a biscuit after he put down the paper, then raised his eyebrows and threw it out of the open window onto the street.    
    "Mrs Doyle," he said charmingly but a bit raggedly,  "Was it the kitchen table you got the Petri dishes from, by any chance?You know, the little glass flat things here with the nuts and biscuits in? That are smoking a bit at the edges, by any chance , perhaps?"

_There was a wet thump that slid along the corridor.  Broken glass and wood crumpled into the wall of Mrs Hudson's bedroom, to a chorus of Tom Jones singing "What's New Pussycat". Booted feet ran along into the room next door, and then  ran out downstairs trashing the front door into splinters. The recording got stuck. Somebody whimpered a little in the sitting room downstairs.  I turned the page of my novel and had another digestive biscuit, a restorative indulgence._

   

That was one of the times that I just go so caught up in polishing the teaspoons and stacking the tea bags edge to edge that it was almost lunchtime the next day when I came in from the corner shop with the milk. Upstairs it was the Archbishop again, with his vicar-woman in black sneaking around by the vehicle parked at the door.  

    All the supplies on the tray I took it all smartly upstairs, wheeling it onto the worktop full of those little glass thingamajigs again.  I put out the fire in the sink with the bottles of stuff next to it and clicked the kettle to boil.  The metal sink started to get crispy again, and the electric wires sparked at me as they trailed into the sink, and bless Father John if he didn't rugby tackle me  away from all that saving my life again.  Silly old me forgetting about the zap factor, my shoelaces keeping my boots on were fused to the carpet again ha ha.

  
    Father Thin was in the background on the sofa using a microscope and two computers at once, and didn't even look up until the lights fused sparking down from the ceiling setting his hair rather on fire.  Father John got that under control as well, and as they were shouting about something else as that lovely man in the dark coat with the silver hair came in through the front door and spoke to them.  

Himself Tall started to rapidly move around the front room, stepping over the Hoover bits that I'd left out earlier waving his long arms about and all three of my gentlemen started to shout at once about good heavens knows what.  I just  emptied the water out of the workings of the Hoover and the green sludge and coiled up the cord as usual.  

  
    As punches were thrown and a violin started to get twanged about a bit I backed downstairs with the cleaning bucket in one hand and the spare sandwiches in the other, turning round at the stair bend to get sorted out.  It was rather soft underfoot for a few steps and the high pitched squealing let me know there was a problem.  I had trodden all over on the Archbishop, but the man has the good manners of a saint, I swear, offering to put the food in the bin ( and indeed everything I was carrying at that moment)  for me straightaway in spite of the bruises and the nosebleed.  Sure and that man'll have to start to wear a red suit to work with all that blood loss, for all the times I see him in a spoilt shirt like a bad Saturday football player ah you have to love him for that though.

_I phoned that nice Anthea girl to get me an emergency taxi and a ticket.  Enough was enough after all, and leaving the key under the mat as I had found it I dodged the sideways rain the next morning good and early to get the ferry to the mainland to start my journey back to London.  Stuff the video diary for the telly people, I was going to get a decent night's sleep without having to wonder if all four sides of the room were going to be there in the morning.  
    The kitchen and part of the front room stood three feet adrift from the rest of the house as I left which would explain the creaking that had started during the night just before I phoned.  A small river seemed to be running through the field of what passed to be the garden though there wasn't a path or flower anywhere in the whole acre, causing the taxi to splash on the way from the front door to the gate.  That's all I'd need, to have to get out and push the car, me at my time of life indeed but more importantly not these shoes in that mud._

 

    Being a Sunday today I went to Mass.  The local church was just hardly a whole street away, very proper I'm sure, and very local which is what you ought to have in the Godless City. It was also a garden themed restaurant, Buddleias being mentioned everywhere sure and those purple flowers are lovely though.  The priests in London seem to sit down a lot, and were all dressed in orange.  They did offer me some food although I didn't take it, not being with a cake or tea and tried to tell me about a Saint Buddha or somebody.  These London people do have their strange ways about them at times, although it was lovely just to walk two streets round the corner to a church that was in the middle of all the houses  like that, very peaceful except for the houses next to it I'm sure.  

    Speaking of peaceful houses I got back to everything upstairs being really strange and silent, so I took the chance to go up and try gluing down some of the carpet again in the front room where it seemed to have got frayed and scorched somewhat, especially near where Father Supercilious had told me off for moving his stuff just before I went out that fancypants eejit getting worried that I would loose something of his from the desktop. 

  
    Ridiculous, I have never lost anything ever, being a Proper Housekeeper not a house looser as I said to him.  

  
    With the glue in one hand I raced up the stairs to get it done quick as you like while before the gentlemen would be needing lunches and sandwiches and tea and goodness knows all suchlike and give the glue a chance to set before I started to wash the top panes of the windows and to get the curtains repaired again in the back bedroom since they were stapled to the window frames. Gosh they were hard to remove every day.

    To my surprise there were at least four people in the front room, all sitting crammed on the sofa. Father John and Father BigForHisBoots were there, trying to nod and talk to me past the duct tape on their mouths, as were a few other people I did not recognise but I turned and had a pleasant surprise.

    "Little Jimmy , how is your sainted mother now?  Well isn't London getting truly smaller and smaller by the minute with everyone popping in to visit and have a sociable word about the weather and.  Now stop waving that gun around - give that here before you hurt someone - stop holding on so tight - and lets go downstairs and put the kettle on for tea." I grabbed hold of that naughty boy as I'd always done, by the ear even though his suit and tie was as crisp and smart as a magazine supplement and turned to the stairs with him sawing his arms and windmilling and almost falling over onto my feet, putting the gun in my apron pocket and the glue into someone's hand.  

  
    I cuffed little Jimmy Moriarty round the back of the head as his swearing got more and more loud past the turn in the stairs and flung him past the front door as the lads fiddled around and freed each other quickly.

    "Mrs Doyle, we do have a kettle here, if you would permit..." Bishop Mycroft suaved his way past into the kitchen and clicked the switch on the kettle, and found his phone again having exchanged an entirely leading but neutral look with the other two men still sitting. He then keeled over sideways to the floor. 

  
    A crash and crinkle of laboratory glassware was heard as Mycroft claimed space on the kitchen floor for the  cups and other stuff.  As little man Jimmy rolled over the front-door threshold step a vehicle stopped screaming to a halt at the kerb and that polished nitwit woman got out and ran past us into the house. Well I put my foot down and out in front of her and sharpish no mistake, nipping all that right in the bud.  She flailed around on the floor for a while but she did stop running at least. Nobody was on fire that particular moment so a lady shouldn't run in the house that is what I say.

    Hearing the teaset embed itself again in the ceiling as the glass chemical thingies exploded once more, I laughed all the way to the supply cupboard  to get another dozen cups and saucers out of the next new box.  Those gentlemen always needed more looking after than they thought they did, and wasn't it my Good Work of the day to make sure it was all sorted out for them.

  
    Father John being kindness itself the dear boy came around the stairs corner running fast with that really movie-star looking man, the two of them with soot on their faces and sideways hair after the explosion.

    "Mrs Doyle, where is Moriarty, are you all right, are you at all hurt?" he enquired.

    "Sure and all, that eejit is right out of the door with all his trouble-making ways elsewhere for now.  You could write a book or two about the trouble that boy was always promising he would start once he had saved up the bus fare to get to the mainland. We were never sure completely how the west side of our island fell into the sea that time, but that rascal Jimmy had bought more than one shovel that summer from the paper-round money."  

  
    For some reason this startled the movie-star man and putting a finger up in apology (such lovely manners) he started to phone people on his mobile and rush around back upstairs.  Father Captain John took the box from me and smiled rather kindly, and then looked rather concerned.  He focused on all the umbrellas sticking out of the cooker door downstairs, for I had left the door to my flat open to the kitchen in my haste. Thinking hard without words, he turned to carry the crockery upstairs, looked at me sideways as his first foot hit the bottom step.

  
    "Will you and the other priests be staying in for dinner this evening, Father John?" I asked, my head sideways as I counted the chops as they were in the freezer and seizing the moment to think how big was the grill. "It's Sunday, so there will be gravy." He paused, and then made up his mind.

    "Mrs Doyle, find your other good cardigan and put it on straight away; I rather think _the Archbishop_ is taking us all out immediately to somewhere he knows rather than put you to the bother of clearing out the oven."  He went up three steps, then stopped.

     "I'd bet my life on it, in fact it's often safer outdoors," he said mysteriously winking and then going on up.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Writer's Notes: Housekeeper Swap is my mythical TV programme based on the lifestyle reality shows where "wifes" swapped families and kept a video diary of the escapades, lolarious reality TV of the noughties yeah. Mrs Doyle is the creation of genius Graham Linehan (and Arthur Mathews), and is based not a little on his mother. My own mother was so entirely very like this, and following her death I give this to the world in tribute to the omnipresent hand-knit bullet-proof cardigan and sideways world that could win wars, brew tea, speak in capital letters and have a nice hanky in the pocket just in case. The Moffat-Gatiss incarnation of Holmes and Watson are also not mine, obviously. There is a noted London buddhism centre a couple of streets away from the RL Baker Street in London.


End file.
